Optimistically, things were going great. Pessimistically, I might be about to die. Unfortunately, the king would be able to sense me gathering mana so if he started anything weird I was going to have to respond with Haste after that began.
No, wait. It would probably be pretty rude to execute someone for agreeing to a first meeting duel. Presumably you wouldn’t offer it at all. Though, I wasn’t sure if such things applied to spies from foreign worlds. While technical details could be argued about, I was certainly not from this world and I’d been brought by this country’s enemies.
I was reminded why I didn’t go into negative mana often. My brain processes were slower than normal, which didn’t help when the same amount of stuff was competing for processing power.
The king was sitting. I hoped nobody had said anything important. Riala was still smiling, at least, and the angels hadn’t yelled ‘run!’. So we were probably good.
“You know,” Riala said. Queen Riala? I sure hoped I wasn’t expected to address people properly because nobody told me how to do it. “Normally people decline first meeting duels. Especially with the king.”
Ugh. Why would anyone even offer them, then?
“Such an opportunity doesn’t appear often,” I said. That would have to do. Though, she should know why I lacked any of Aidura’s common knowledge.
The king’s voice boomed out once more. Imperious, but restrained. “It is quite disappointing, honestly. It seems that people lack faith in my ability to control my power.”
“Well, you do have a lot of it,” I pointed out. Was it dangerous to talk casually with a king? If he was displeased I could prostrate myself or whatever he wanted. Embarrassing as it might be, it wouldn’t be long before I was back in another world entirely.
The king nodded. I wondered if he had a name? Maybe it was surprisingly normal. “I should very much hope so. Otherwise, my centuries of training have been for naught.” He leaned back on his throne, his horns only just touching the surface. It continued to be strange to observe how he still always appeared to be immediately in front of me. His upper body seemed to grow as it went further away, confusing my brain. “But such discussions can be later, if we return to them at all. I brought you here to offer you a reward. You did not have to aid my beautiful wife in slaying the dragon that threatened our people, but you did so anyway. Had you not provided your aid, it most likely would have slain her and destroyed a village or two. It is not possible for me to offer you something of commensurate value to the life of the queen, but I can at least offer you rewards suitable to the price of two villages.”
I had no idea how much that was. It would depend on how much he actually valued his people. “I am certain that the king has already been informed of our primary reason to come to The Capital. There is the matter of the Heroic Curse of The Six.”
“Yes. An interesting topic indeed,” the king nodded. “Though… there are certain details that confuse me, even with Riala’s information. For example, you are not afflicted with the curse.”
“You can tell?” I asked. “I didn’t even notice those who were afflicted until I saw some side effects.”
“Of course I can tell. I’ve been dealing with it practically forever, you might recall.”
“Ah, yes,” I nodded. “Of course.”
The king straightened up. His purple eyes bore down on me. “Your numbers don’t add up. There are neither six nor twelve of you… and we are confused about the cat.”
“That’s right,” Riala said. “Deepest Night appears to share in your power.”
Midnight’s name was still awesome in the language of the Many-Colored
“He is my familiar,” I said simply. That was true, even if it wasn’t the full explanation. “Do you not have those here?”
I could assume not, specifically because ‘familiar’ didn’t translate. The humans hadn’t appeared too concerned, but they were idiots so it was difficult to say.
“I don’t believe so,” the king of the Many-Colored said. “Now then, you are interested in removing the curse from certain individuals?”
“That is correct,” I said.
“And you came here to kill me?”
I tilted my head. “I don’t know if that would do any good?” Obviously Zuresh said we had to kill the demon king. Maybe the curse would end with his death, or maybe it wouldn’t. Obviously nobody had actually tested that. “Also we probably would have fought alongside Zuresh and The Six if we wanted that.”
“Wouldn’t have helped,” he shrugged. Either he hadn’t believed I actually wanted to kill him, or he was convinced that I couldn’t. He was probably mostly right. “They always lose. But it’s not great for our development here to constantly be at war. We could do something better. Than removing the curse, I mean.”
“Uh… I really need to bring back the cursed people,” I explained. “So we can just leave.”
“I understand where you are coming from,” the king said. “But that wouldn’t solve either of our problems, I don’t think. After all, chances are that The Six would just grab more of your people for the next cycle.”
I made a face. “Ugh. I was hoping it would be difficult for them.”
“It does take significant effort and resources, but they seem willing to repeatedly do so. I can’t guarantee that they will always draw their new sacrifices from your world, but it is quite likely at least for the near future.”
The angels were very quiet. Why did I even have them if I had to do all the talking?
“So,” I asked, “What solution do you propose?”
“Simple. We merely alter the curse instead of removing it.”
“Is that simple?” I asked. “Based on what I’ve seen, that would be more complicated and it’s already an extremely difficult task.”
“You are correct,” the king nodded. “Even one such as I would tire myself to exhaustion attempting it alone. But…” he looked at me, then the angels. “We have a unique opportunity here. Your connection to your own world should provide a stabilizing force. I must ask something, however. You… could bring the ‘heroes’ back to your own world if they were not otherwise bound here, correct?”
It would be counterproductive to lie about that at this moment. “... yes.”
“Excellent. Then the solution might be even better than I anticipated.” He stroked his chin, cyan fingers nearly brushing against the long horns that surrounded his face. “All we’d have to do was remove the travel restrictions, and we could leave the rest. Though we’d have to make up for the numbers. Do you think we could curse some more of your people?”
“Uh-”
“They wouldn’t even notice. And you’d simply bring them back to your world where nobody here could touch them. The Six can’t summon more heroes when they’re at capacity.”
“... We would need to thoroughly go over the details before I could agree to something like that,” I said.
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“Obviously. I’ll write up some plans for you to look over. Let me know what you want as a reward. Oh, and could I ask for a favor?”
I hesitated. What sort of favor could the king want?
“Talk to the heroes we have captured and get them to eat, please. They’re going to starve to death and then those people,” he gestured all around, “Will just summon more! I don’t believe you or I want either part of that to come to pass.”
“... We don’t,” I agreed.
“Great. Riala dear, could you handle that? Nobody likes to see me in the dungeons.”
“Of course.”
-----
“... I can’t believe you didn’t tell us you were queen,” I chastised Riala.
She just laughed at me. At me. Even though I was the one who was deceived. “I can’t believe you didn’t figure it out. Did you never talk to anyone?”
Inasyah cleared her throat. “I suspected. By the time I actually knew, it was too late to make a difference.”
I frowned. “Couldn’t you have told me?”
“And risked you giving us away, if we weren’t already compromised?”
“Fair.”
Malaliel had been quiet, but she finally spoke up. “I am glad that I did not read your intentions incorrectly.”
“Likewise,” Riala said. “Though I did find it nearly unbelievable that you would even consider not trying to kill us.” She stopped for a moment in a random stretch of hallway. “I didn’t know you had wings. Could I see them?”
“... Perhaps later,” Malaliel commented.
“Right. Prisoners first. Can we entrust them to you, by the way? It’s quite difficult to communicate with them. Several different language translations and all that.”
“If they are people of Earth, we will watch over them,” Malaliel said. “It is our duty.”
It might have been her duty, but it was just my job. I wondered how much I was getting paid. I hadn’t calculated it on my phone because I didn’t know the full time of the assignment and was unsure how often I could get battery resupplies and such. Probably less than two villages. I’m pretty sure that value should be shared with at least the angels. And Midnight should get some too because he was watching over the kids and the rest of Extra. I wasn’t sure about the random members. Could they even accept money? If not, the angels doubtless couldn’t either.
Oh yeah, and Riala had mentioned the dragon’s evaluation would be concluded soon.
“What are you thinking about?” Riala asked. “If you are worried about the prisoners, they are in the best state we could manage. Some were injured as we captured them, or beforehand, but they have been treated appropriately. Though they would be in better shape if they weren’t stubborn.”
“Glad to hear it,” I said. I didn’t mention that I hadn’t thought about them at all. I didn’t even know them.
As we approached, Malaliel spoke up. “I suppose we should reveal our true forms before we show up. Or it will appear suspicious.” She looked to Riala. “It won’t be a problem, will it?”
“Not if you’re walking with me. The guards are well trained.”
Thus it was time to dismiss Disguise on the three of us. From my own perspective I didn’t look much different except now I wouldn’t see random horns. I’d kept my skin color the same, but the angels were significantly different.
“Fascinating,” Riala said. “Your styles of clothing are… all unique. You must introduce me to your tailors.”
“... I don’t think they’d let me,” I said. “We’re really supposed to minimize cross-dimensional interactions.” Not that I cared, but Extra did.
“Ours just come from a factory,” Malaliel commented.
Now that she mentioned it… their equipment was mainly high tech materials, not super tech. The difference was that one couldn’t function without powers.
“So…” Riala said. “You’re interested in spatial magic, huh? But you could get those kids back home if they weren’t cursed.”
“I only know the very basics of how this world’s magic works,” I said. She wouldn’t be fooled, but I wasn’t trying. I believe this was called ‘subtle deflection’ or something.
We soon came to the prisoners. Honestly, when Riala had first explained the conditions of the captured heroes she was pretty accurate. There wasn’t anything luxurious, and they were magically shackled, but their living conditions weren’t awful. The cells were clean, if small, and everyone was wearing decent clothes. Four out of six had clothes from Earth.
Riala tossed Malaliel a set of keys. “Just make sure nobody does anything stupid.”
They honestly didn’t need me here. People were so relieved to see angels- who happened to be Extra agents to boot- that an orc mercenary was kind of an afterthought. It was nice not to have to interact with people I didn’t know. It came to mind that none of the six were teenagers, though they were still relatively young. It did seem to snatch people in groups, though there was a split of countries these people had been summoned to.
We confirmed everyone had come from New Bay. Malaliel seemed hesitant to display unnecessary technology, even if we were revealing our true looks, but we were able to confirm identities for later. Hopefully we would be back on Earth soonish so they could handle the paperwork.
-----
When we got back to everyone else, we had so much to explain. I was only interested in explaining things to Midnight, though.
“It was a First Meeting Duel.”
He shook his head. “Absolutely terrifying. I almost ran away, even though you were firmly confident.”
I’m not sure I actually felt that during the duel. Maybe I blocked even more negative thoughts from reaching Midnight. “I never thought he was trying to kill me.” I was terrified that he might want to. But I was barely injured.
“... Why haven’t you asked anyone for healing?” Midnight nudged me.
“Uh. I forgot.”
Midnight just sighed. “At least you magically reached a solution.”
“Magic is the best solution. Especially when the problem was magic in the first place.”
-----
There was absolutely, positively no way that modifications to the curse were humanly possible. I already knew it would require six people, but that was for removing things. The modifications would require absolutely massive amounts of mana.
It was a good thing most of us proficient magic users weren’t human. No, none of those who would be involved were.
Three people from Earth. Well, the universe that contained Earth. I was naturalized, Midnight was local, and Inasyah was… look, magic didn’t have to always be precise. She lived on Earth and not in this world, so it was fine.
Malaliel was stronger, but she hadn’t gotten much practice with this world’s magic. Inasyah had been deeply interested since the first day, and her lesser responsibilities allowed her to spend more time on it and less time worrying about the safety of the teens and literally all of the others abducted from Earth.
Then from this world there would be one random mage I didn’t know, Riala, and the king.
Most of the impossibility would be made up by the latter. He still needed competent assistance, though.
Over the next few days, we did a half dozen practice runs. The actual event would be a long ritual, up to several hours of spellcasting to modify just a single curse. Future iterations might be faster depending on how that went. Verbal and somatic components would be used to keep our magic stable over that long duration. A lot of chanting and hand signs. Even just the practice was exhausting, and enduring for that entire time would be impossible without this world’s abnormally high levels of mana and thus mana recovery.
I’d come to the conclusion that the components were necessary because there was too much mana. Manual control of mana might be dangerous for new trainees otherwise. I would be interested in confirming those theories later, if I got further access to libraries and such. For the moment, we had to finish a single task.
The random guy I’d seen with Scrying- the first one locked up in a dungeon- would be our first target. He had volunteered, not because he was in a rush to get back to Earth but because ‘if it kills me you can figure out what went wrong’.
It was amazing how much friendly faces had helped the ex-prisoners. They had been afraid to eat because of ‘mind control poison’ or some such. Maybe Skecor- where he had been summoned- did such things, but I was pretty sure those of the Many-Colored Skin didn’t. Though maybe they should, it would have been easier to handle the prisoners. They were lucky that people bothered to pad their manacles with how much they had apparently struggled.
They weren’t fully on board with the idea that the people here weren’t demons, yet, but they had to admit they’d been treated alright. Obviously they had complaints, but nobody had flush toilets in this world. As far as I knew.
Hopefully we could get everyone back home soon enough. Those who were still alive. Most likely there were some still being trained as heroes… but that was a problem for later. I’d probably have to make some return trips until we were sure The Six couldn’t yoink any more of our citizens.
